EPA emissions cuts trapped in haze

The Environmental Protection Agency is on track to begin regulating greenhouse gases for the first time in less than three months, but it could be a messy process.

The Obama administration promises a smooth transition as the EPA begins to require cuts in emissions from large industrial sources like power plants and oil refineries, but uncertainties abound as the agency hustles to bring states into line and climate polices remain entangled in federal court cases.

Text Size

POLITICO 44

“There is concern that EPA is trying to cram this through in too short a time period,” said Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.

Feldman and other industry officials argue that the EPA hasn’t afforded enough time for legal fights over climate rules to play out or for states to understand how they’ll be expected to curb emissions from large industrial sources. As a result, they warn, when climate rules officially kick in Jan. 2, businesses will encounter a patchwork of regulations across states, and construction will grind to a halt.

“Major regulations are always met — are often met — with doom-and-gloom, dire predictions of economic ruin, and there is no history to bear that out,” Jackson told POLITICO in an interview last week.

“The rules that we’ve put forth so far have been smart, sensible,” she added.

Still, proponents of the EPA regulations acknowledge that there will quite likely be some hiccups as the agency irons out the kinks in its new climate regime.

Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said that some “bumps in the road” are to be expected but that industry’s concerns are overblown. “It’s going to be no different from the other programs that have been implemented by EPA over the past 40 years,” he said.

Readers' Comments (12)

Many of the environmental regulation being implemented are related to the so-called ground breaking work done in California. It has now been revealed that California established legislation based on junk science and overestimated some of their polution levels by as much as 340%.

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).-----------

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. -----

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, ------

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science,----

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members' interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses----

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people's motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. ---------, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

There should be no controls made by anyone but the congress who are following the desires of the public. The courts may have ruled that the EPA can do this, buts it is a huge mistake to allow for this kind of rampant power turned loose over americans by unelected officials who have a leftist view of the world. Something must be done to stop these power grabs. The trillions of dollars described in the post above is mostly what this is about. The sheep that follow are just being scared into thinking the world is ending. All they really are getting is bilked out of their money. Enough with the power hungary leftist in washington. We will be removing them from office soon.

Groups like API have said the same things about every rule EPA adopted in the past 40 years and have been wrong every time. Fortunately for all of us, past cleanup efforts went forward despite these claims.

Forty years of experience with the Clean Air Act proves we can cut pollution and save lives, and still enjoy economic growth. Indeed, since Congress passed the law, we have prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths AND the economy has grown by 70 percent. Let’s highlight these facts as we work to bolster EPA and state efforts today and secure continued support from Congress for this remarkable law. bit.ly/aipzl8

Forty years of experience with the Clean Air Act proves we can cut pollution and save lives, and still enjoy economic growth. Indeed, since Congress passed the law, we have prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths AND the economy has grown by 70 percent. Let’s highlight these facts as we work to bolster EPA and state efforts today and secure continued support from Congress for this remarkable law. bit.ly/aipzl8

Meghan, you cannot quote one scientist that makes a claim that Cap and Trade or the restrictions on carbon dioxide will measurably reduce carbon dioxide. You are asserting that people will die from an increase in carbon dioxide that cannot be measured clearly shows an alarmist attitude with zero thought process.

...and by the way, are you in favor of nuclear? Infavor but don't see how we can handle the waste even though we have hundreds of power plant, military and medical waste sites in hundreds of locations that president Obama mandates stay open by shutting down a paid for waste repository that has been proved vcapable of handling waste safely and securely for 10,000 years.?

Do you realize that the proposed "solutions" of wind and solar require 100% back-up from fossil fuel. How could you imagine that any power source so inefficient could possibly clean the air?

Universities, government agencies, international groups such as the UN have benn the beificiaries of hundreds of billions in grants with the express purpose of proving that man is warming the Earth. Thousands of disclosures in the Cimategate emails, distortions shown in placement of temperature stations, manipulation of temperature data and models to reverse basic which shows cooling and every possible attempt to modify and amplify warming. The corruption by the money involved is obvious.

the press as always has found that sensationalist stories of cities drowning, drought, ice caps disappearing and runaway warming sell stories in magazines, newpapers and books and make money on radio and television. People like Al Gore make money lecturing, making movies and by involvement in carbon trading schemes which make millions with the possibility to make billions.

Manufactureres of wind turbines and solar panels are more than happy to make conributions to politicians as are "Green" groups that naturally fall in line and support what they preceive as a environmental issue.

Some politicians, not being the brightest bulbs, actually believe man is warming the earth. Many others cynically adopt it as a way to gain power or as a way to satisfy their political goals to redistribute wealth to foreign countries.

Third world countries and developing countries are anxious to accept something that blames developed countries and affords rewards to them from developed countries as reparations for past carbon use.

The losers are the people who will pay for higher energy costs, have enrgy rationed, be further reliant on foreign oil and foreign products. We will not see any cleaner air as this is impossible as technology that actaully cleans the air is dismissed and unworkable power that cannot is mandated. The losers are you and me.

The only way to clean the air, develop our massive rresources, reduce the $700 billion trade deficit cause by oil imports, provide clean, affordable energy is to replace those working against these things with those who will work for us.

Groups like API have said the same things about every rule EPA adopted in the past 40 years and have been wrong every time. Fortunately for all of us, past cleanup efforts went forward despite these claims.

Forty years of experience with the Clean Air Act proves we can cut pollution and save lives, and still enjoy economic growth. Indeed, since Congress passed the law, we have prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths AND the economy has grown by 70 percent. Let’s highlight these facts as we work to bolster EPA and state efforts today and secure continued support from Congress for this remarkable law. bit.ly/aipzl8

Defund the EPA on Jan 3rd. Remove all regulatory capability until we regain the oval office in 2012, then send jackson and browner to prison for treason.

Actually, I can name two dozen. In a report to Congress, members of the National Academy of Sciences recommended:

“that the U.S. policy goal be stated as a quantitative limit on domestic GHG emissions over a specified time period – in other words, a GHG emissions budget.”

And that U.S. policy makers “Adopt an economy-wide carbon pricing system.”

Scientists are habitually very cautious about making policy recommendations, but when Congress asked the Academy to “make recommendations regarding what steps must be taken and what strategies must be adopted in response to global climate change…” Its response was unambiguous. Now it’s time for the Senate to listen.

Actually, I can name two dozen. In a report to Congress, members of the National Academy of Sciences recommended:

“that the U.S. policy goal be stated as a quantitative limit on domestic GHG emissions over a specified time period – in other words, a GHG emissions budget.”

And that U.S. policy makers “Adopt an economy-wide carbon pricing system.”

Scientists are habitually very cautious about making policy recommendations, but when Congress asked the Academy to “make recommendations regarding what steps must be taken and what strategies must be adopted in response to global climate change…” Its response was unambiguous. Now it’s time for the Senate to listen.

No climate scientist in the world claims that the miniscule amount costing trillions can measurably reduce carbon dioxide levels. You have replied with nothing that refutes my statement. My statement is verified by James Hansen the father of global warming.

The purpose of such regulation of CO2 has nothing to do with the environment. It's merely an excuse to allow financial parasites like the successors to the late Enron and Lehman Brothers to make a fortune at our expense trading carbon credits. Enron and Lehman Brothers failed because they started spending their anticipated weatlth before they had it. Enron had already made a fortune trading sufur dioxide credits under a program set up as an alternative to actually reducing sulfur pollution from coal powered electric plants.

I have more extensive discussions of this issue on my blog on this site.